baby moorhens

We have seen some baby moorhens at last. We have been waiting for this, knowing that all the while they have been secretly reared in secret nests here and there in the reeds or among overhanging branches on the lakeside. It was well worth the wait. There were two of them, with their mother, running about on a plank that has been moored to the edge of the canal. They are really the most delightfully comical creatures I think I have ever seen – like black balls of fluff wearing clown shoes. Their black feet are enormously too big for their bodies and they run about with their heads lowered in the way the parents do, it is just too lovely! To top it all I saw another of my very favourite new, new things when some children in the park ran up to us with plastic glasses to show us the teeny tiny baby frogs they had caught which were swimming inside. I think they really appreciated getting such an enthusiastic response from adults. I haven't seen tiddly little frogs like that since I was that age myself and had felt rather bereaved at the thought that the tadpoles in the pond would most likely progress to frogdom without me being fortunate enough to see them. It's an extraordinary sight to see a perfectly formed frog, so very much alive, and barely the size of a child's fingernail.
The juvenile ducks weren't there today, but we have recently seen all six of them together again resting under a tree at the side of the pond. At other times they frequent various parts of the canals and go there own way with a very precocious assertion of independence. They, and all the ducklings and duck-mothers on the lake, have been placed on vastly reduced rations of bread after my crisis of conscience over the feeding issue last week. The photo is one of an adult moorhen racing around during breeding season. Until I get a magnificent new camera with a telescopic lens and marvellous magnification, I am afraid that pictures of very young birds are beyond my scope!